Jakarta, IO – President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo wanted the number of Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) scholarship recipients to be increased at least five-fold from the current rate.
“The number of scholarship recipients has increased seven-fold since the establishment of LPDP, but this is still woefully inadequate,” he said on Tuesday (16/1).
Based on LPDP data, the total number of recipients in the past 10 years are 40,174. “When the LPDP program started it only had Rp1 trillion, but in 2023 it managed Rp139 trillion,” said Jokowi.
Jokowi said Indonesia still has a low number of university graduates with master’s and doctoral degrees among the productive population.
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“I was shocked when I was made aware of this yesterday. Indonesia’s rate is 0.45 percent. Compare this to our neighboring countries. Vietnam and Malaysia are already at 2.43 percent. Developed countries are at 9.8 percent. The gap is huge,” he pointed out.
Jokowi hopes that Indonesia can close the gap in preparing superior human resources needed to sustain its development and help it achieved its Golden Indonesia Vision 2045 as a developed country. (at)